To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death --- these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow. - C.S. Lewis

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Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Flynn Flammed

You can tell when a Republican is in the White House. Every potential misstep is Watergate, and every potential misstepper is Adolf Hitler. The day when this finally wears thin and people wise up to the media and democrat theatrics can't come too soon. At least we're all getting brushed up on the finer points of obscure 218 year old never once used laws. How about that Logan act eh? What would we do without it?

Michael Flynn is gone. I say good riddance. Trump can do better. Flynn now has the distinction of having been hired by two presidents in a row and let go by two presidents in a row (Obama and Trump). Bye Felicia.

There are a few possible scenarios about Mr. Flynn's wild, and brief, ride and mostly they all end with it being the right thing to do to let him go. Yes there are other miscreants in the mix, but that doesn't absolve Flynn of his sin. A few possibilities;

Scenario 1 - Accepting the public narrative

A reporter reveals Flynn engaged in conversations with Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, on December 29th (the day Obama announced sanctions).

Reporter wonders "What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions?".

Flynn told VP Pence that he did not talk about improper stuff with Sergey.

Pence supported his guy and publicly made false statements based on the bad info that Flynn gave him about not discussing the stuff.

Routine FBI surveillance of Sergey revealed that Flynn did talk about the stuff with Sergey.

Flynn confessed, apologized, and resigned.

Best case with this scenario is that the Trump admin has a NSA that will lie to them to cover his backside. It shouldn't have taken days to ask for his resignation in this scenario. Your NSA lies to you, you fire him. Once is once too much.

Scenario 2 - Conspiracy theory 1

Start with scenario 1 and add the possibility that Pence actually knew that Flynn had talked about the stuff at the time he was defending Flynn. In this scenario Pence's public presentation was a bluff. When it got called, scenario 2 became scenario 1 for all intents an purposes. The appearance that you have an NSA that lies to you becomes the public's reality and the NSA still gets fired.

Scenario 3 - Conspiracy theory 2

Add to scenario 2 the possibility that the December message to Sergey was sent on behalf of Trump/Pence. Here Flynn hasn't actually done anything on his own to put the administration in a tough spot. The ensuing theater around the issue still presents some difficulty in keeping Flynn, but there is the possibility that the administration might have stood by a loyal team member and just rode it out.

Scenario 4 - The big conspiracy theory

Consider the possibility that Mike Flynn was actually a focus of the surveillance. Flynn is a US citizen and stuff isn't supposed to be collected on him without a warrant. The information that was leaked shouldn't have been available to be leaked. The FBI investigation would have had to include looking for something like collusion between Russia and the Trump team for the leak to have been just a simple leak.

Of course this scenario still leads into one of the first three, so still a better than 2 in 3 chance Flynn gets the boot.

All of the hoopla from the left about this being a scandal for the Trump administration is misdirected. If there is a real crisis that needs to be investigated here(and I think there is), it's with the retention of surveillance data on a US citizen, or the possibility that the warrant covered Trump team members, and of course the subsequent leaking of the surveillance. Two of these, The leaking and retention without a warrant, should result in charges against the people involved. The third involves the possibility that the warrant covered Michael Flynn, and the implications of that are enormous.

There is a fair amount of chatter that Flynn getting ousted is all the media's fault and they brought down one of Trump's inner circle. That's a pile of pasture puddles. The king of media trolling is the guy that just accepted Flynn's resignation. It's unlikely that Michael Flynn is out for any reason other than Michael Flynn. The silver lining is that Trump has an opportunity to trade up.